Garment hanger



a- 9 .L A. SCHMITT 2,448,282

I GARMENT HANGER Filed June 4, 1945 Patented Aug. ST, 1948 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE H GARMENT HANGER John A. Schmitt, Milwaukee, Wis. Application June 4, 1945, Serial No. 597,500

This invention pertains to garment hangers, and more particularly to a hanger guard or garment protector strip and means for securely interengaging the protector or guard with a conventional wire garment hanger.

Wire hangers made of relatively small gage wire bent into a triangular loop of low altitude at the apex of which an integral supporting hook is provided, are extensively used by cleaners, pressers, and tailors for delivery of garments, and are subsequentlyused by the owners for temporarily hanging the garments in storage.

If a garment is permitted to remain too long on such wire hanger, it is likely to be drawn out of shape by its weight, and the material becomes distorted, creased and marked by the narrow supporting area afforded by the small gage wire of the conventional hanger.

In the present invention there is contemplated a guard or garment protector attachable to a conventional wire hanger, which will afford a broad contoured garment support having continuous uninterrupted marginal areas on which the strain and weight of the garment will be uniformly distributed, and without stretching and distorting the material, or causing it to be sharply creased. The invention further contemplates snap engagement of the protector with the wire hanger, under inherent tension of the protective device.

Garment hangers having relatively broad shoulder areas made of wood or of metal are wellknown, but have been too expensive for commercial use in lieu of the conventional wire hangers which have very generally gone into popular use. Also guard strips or protectors of various forms have been devised for the wire hangers, but have usually been of weak and flimsy construction and materials which were insecurely held upon the hangers.

The object of the invention is to improve the construction as well as the shape adn mode of attaching guards or garment protectors to conventional wire hangers, whereby they may not only be economically manufactured, but will be of sufficient width and suitably contoured to distribute the weight and strain of a garment supported thereon and thereby minimize stretching, distortion and creasing thereof.

A further object of the invention is to provide improved integral mounting means engageable with the wire hanger.

A further object of the invention is to provide a hanger guard or protector having the advantageous structural features and the inherent meritorious characteristics herein described.

'1 Claim. (01. 223-88) With the above primary and other incidental objects in view as will more fully appear in the specification, the invention intended to be protected by Letters Patent consists of the features of construction, the parts and combinations thereof, and the mode of operation, or their equivalent, as hereinafter described or illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

In the accompanying drawings wherein are shown the preferred, but not necessarily theonly forms of embodiment of the invention,

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a hanger guard or garment protector, embodying the present invention, applied to a conventional wire garment hanger.

Fig. 2 is a transverse sectional view thereof on line 2-2 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is an exterior top plan view of a fragmentary portion of the guard or protector detached from the hanger, showing an inwardly directed depression forming interiorly of the guard the concavo-convex attachment protuber- Fig. 4 is a bottom plan view of a fragmentary portion of the guard or protector engaged with a portion of hanger, and corresponds to the inte rior appearance of both Fig. 2 and Fig. 6. I

Fig. 5 is an exterior view, similar to Fig. 3, showing the guard engaged with a portion of the hanger, as appears in Fig. 4.

Fig. dis a transverse sectional view, similar to Fig. 2, illustrating amodification wherein the exterior or top service is not depressed, but is bridged uniformly over the attachment protuberance.

Fig. 7 is a further modification wherein the attachment protuberance is laterally slotted for engagement with the hanger instead of being medially slotted.

Like parts are indicated by similar characters of reference throughout the several views.

Referring to the drawing, there is illustrated therein a conventional hanger formed from a sin gle length of small gage wire, to which the present guard or garment protector is applicable. The hanger comprises a triangular wire loop of low altitude, having divergent sides l-l interconnected by a transverse base tie 2, and having at its apex a supporting hook 3 formed by twisting together the opposite ends of the wire strand and bending them into an inverted bight.

The hanger guard or garment protector 4 comprises an elongated inverted channel shaped member medially bent to afford divergent arms 5-5, the angularity of which approximately agrees with that of the sides |--I of the hanger loop. The arms 5 of the guard are relatively broad and transversely contoured to approximately semi-circular arcuate form. They are of uniform exterior shape and the lateral margins are continuous and uninterrupted. At the medial bend or the juncture of the angularly disposed inverted channel shaped arms 5 is an opening 6 to receive therein the supporting hook 3. At one or more spaced points upon each of the divergent channel shaped arms 5 are formed inwardly projecting concavo-convex protuberances or recesses I each of which is longitudinally split at 8 and is preferably provided at each end of the longi-- tudinal split, with a hole 9 of sufiicient diameter to receive the wire side i of the hanger. The bisected protuberance thus affords a pair of spring jaws which grip the hanger wire.

By grasping the opposite margins of the channel shaped guard, which is somewhat resilient, and expanding the latter, the guard may be sufiiciently distorted to dilate or distend the split 8 of the protuberance l to enable the wire side I of the hanger to be pressed thereinto. The hanger wire will usually enter the split 8 with a snap, and the medial portion of the split protuberance will close over and grip the wire, leaving the latter extending through the holes 9 at the opposite ends of the split 8.

A straight length of inverted channel shaped guard or protector t" is engageable in like manner over the bottom or transverse tie 2 of the wire hanger, which is deemed to be Within the scope of certain appended claim.

The ends of the horizontal lower guard i are preferably but not necessarily terminally notched at It for interlocking engagement with the inclined sides l! of the hanger to prevent-its displacement.

The guard or protector is preferably made from plastic material by either molding it to the requisite shape, or by pressing it from resilient, initially plastic sheet material. However, such guard may be made from fiber board, or stiff, hard paper or cardboard of sufficient density and resiliency, or even from thin sheet metal. One of the requisites is that the guard shall possess a smooth, uniform supporting surface, the margins of which shall be continuous and uninterrupted to prevent distortion of the supported garment.

The protuberances i are quite shallow, being only sufiiciently deep to receive the intersecting portion of the wire and their margins are rounded or curved to such extent that the supported garment will not be drawn into the depression and marked by the edges thereof.

In lieu of forming the attachment protuberance "l by depressing the exterior surface of the guard, as shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 5, in the event that the 4 guard is molded, the exterior surface may be formed uniform and continuous by being bridged across the recess or chamber of the protuberance l, as shown at I I in Figs. 6 and '7. In such case, the protuberance 1 is longitudinally slotted at 8 as previously described for engagement with the wire of the hanger, as is shown in Fig. 4. Other than that there is no exterior depression, the construction and operation of the embodiment shown in Fig. 6 is the same as is illustrated in the precedind views.

For some conditions of use it may be more convenient to engage the hanger wire laterally through an offset slot 8' of the protuberance I, as shown in Fig. 7.

From the above description it will be apparent that there is thus provided a device of the character described possessing the particular features of advantage before enumerated as desirable, but which obviously is susceptible of modification in its form, proportions, detail construction and arranger'nent of parts without departing train the principle involved or sacrificing any of its advantages.

While in order to comply with the statute the invention has been described in language more or less specific as to structural features, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the specific features shown, but that the means and construction herein disclosed comprise the preferred form of several modes of putting the invention into effect,- and the invention is therefore claimed in any of its forms or modifications within the legitimate and valid scope of the appended claim.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

A hanger guard of the character described including, an elongated inverted channel-shaped body formed of sheet material, said body having its bight portion only formed with an outwardly facing substantiall concave recess, the wall defining said recess being cut away along the longitudinal axis of the body to provide a pair of spaced opposed inwardly directed andcurved fin gers, the longitudinal axis of each of said fingers being transverse to the longitudinal axis of the elongated channel shaped body.

JOHN A. SCI-IMITT.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS umber Name Date 1,987,174 Zetlin l- J an. 8, 1935 2,062,566 Flel'cher et a1 Dec. 1, 1936 2,089,077 Todd et al. Aug. 3; 193? 

